Boys golf: Broomfield's Gorman lights up Harmony Club for FRL victory

Eagles senior fires 6-under 66 to move into second place in season standings

TIMNATH — Course management in not a term that resides in too many high schoolers' lexicon.

No, most have the the old school "grip it and rip it" approach, trying to hit it as far as they can every time they step up to the tee box.

Not Alex Gorman. The Broomfield senior hit all 13 fairways on Tuesday afternoon in the final Front Range League match of the year at The Harmony Club and 15 of 18 greens in regulation en route to a stelar 6-under par 66 and a three-shot victory over Legacy's Trevor Glen.

"That's the biggest part of my game and I played safe today honestly," Gorman said. "There are holes where you can obviously go for it and I try to take advantage of those holes, but other than that I play pretty safe."

Gorman, who started the day 10 shots behind Fort Collins' AJ Ott for Front Range League medalist honors and two behind Boulder's Alec Poorman, trimmed four shots off of Ott's lead and was five better than Poorman on Wednesday.

"I knew I wanted to get into the mid 60's. I've been playing well enough to get there," said Gorman, who was playing the Jim Engh-designed course for the first time. "I just needed to start making some putts and they finally started dropping."

Gorman started on No. 4 and in the six holes he played before making the turn to the back side, he posted three birdies — including a back-to-back at No. 8 and 9.

Advertisement

The highlight of the round came on the 561-yard par-5 14. Facing a blind second shot over a grove of trees and a hazard, Gorman reached the green in two shots and calmly rolled in a 15-foot uphill putt for eagle.

"I'm hitting the ball good and making putts," said Gorman about his game heading into regionals in two weeks. "I'm right where I want to be."

By virtue of Broomfield's seventh-place league finish, Gorman and the rest of the Eagles will travel to Aurora's Green Valley Ranch G.C. on Tuesday, Sept. 16 for the Class 5A Central Regional.

Also at Green Valley will be Legacy. The Lightning, led by Trevor Glen's 3-under par 69, moved up to third in the league standings on Tuesday.

Glen, who had played at Harmony twice before, was ready for what the course was going to throw at him, especially the course's signature gigantic greens.

"If you are on the right part (of the green) then it is not too bad," Glen said. "But putting from one tier to the other is quite a challenge."

Glen's teammate Li Chen, who is a two-time state runner up, shot a 5-over 77 to finish tied for 15th. Chen, who took a few chances off the tee on some of the shorter holes on Tuesday that didn't go his way, made four birdies but also threw in a triple and double bogey in his roller-coaster round.

Chen knows he still has a few things to work on in the coming weeks to get his game in shape for one final run at a state title.

"I've got some things to fix, a few small problems," said Chen, who pointed specifically to his iron game and his short game. "I've just got to work harder on the range and with my putting and I should be playing a lot better."

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.

Boulder is pretty good at producing rock bands, and by "rock," we mean the in-your-face, guitar-heavy, leather-clad variety — you know, the good kind. For a prime example, look no farther than BANDITS. Full Story